The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1887-04-21
OUR .'BEST STREET-CAR SYSTEM"
A Terre Haure View of the Worst System
and the Filthiest ON Earth.

A Terre Haure View of the Worst System
and the Filthiest Earth.
Terre Haute Express.
The Indianapolis Journal and News are en-
gagged in interesting discussion of the sire ct
line in that city. For although it is a city
of 100000 inhabitants, there is but one, and will
be but one company so long as the corporation is
able to control the council and influence the city
press. The News, conspicuous for its wrong
headedness on a good many important questions,
contends that the capital has one of the best
streetcar systems in the country; that the cars
are excellent in construction and are kept clean,
and that the roadbed is above criticism. The
road-bed is the best part of the system. but as
the tracks have not been constructed with a
view to the comfort of pedestrians this item is
not important it might be. 1t is not
Terre Haute's fight but her citizens are obliged
to 60 to Indianapolis, like people from all parts
OF the State, and their experience has been such
that they sustain the Journal entirely in its
opinion that the cars there frequently too
filthy to be used by respectable people. Like
wise there are no conductors and women, es-
pecially, have been subjected to good deal of
modification from the insulting insolence of the
drivers. who vary the business of flashing the
attenuated mules by giving orders to 'pass up
your fare" A few months ago a lady from
this city, having left her purse at home taking
with her slightly mutilated half-dolar,
started from the South Side to dine with
somefrends on North Pennsylvania street The
driver refused to take the money, which was
subsequently changed for her at store without
the slightest objection, and she was forced to
leave the car and walk the entire distance more
than three miles. She arrived long after the
appointed hour, and the discussion of the In
danapolis street-car system, illustrated by per-
| soral experience. would have edited, if not in
| structed, the misguided editor of the News. And
! it is not an uncommon thing to have driver
| stop car, single out some timd, nervous wom-
| an and bring her to open shame, making her the
| object OF curious scrutiny from the other pas
| sen gers by insisting that she has not paid her
| fare. An Express representative was witnezs
| to a scene like this not long ago, nor would the
| driver be convinced or whip up his
| r,ckety mules until he had had the solemn testi-
| monv of all the other passengers that the woman
| chad paid" Then there is the transfer car
| There is nothing like it in the United States
| Take it on a cold winter day or damp one
| when it is crowded with all classes and condi-
tions of filthy people. and it presents scene to
| which only Hogarth could have done Justice,
and which might have furnished Dante a model
| for an additional circle to the inferno There
| are frequently within that narrow space dirty
| negroes. dirty whites, with dragged
! skirts, and men whose breath reeks with the
| fumes of onions. whisky and tobacco. It is no
| wonder that the visiting stranger, judging the
rest of the State from its chief city, really be-
lieves that Indiana ia forty or fifty years behind
the times nor that. in more progressive locali-
ties, ''Hoosier" is still the synonym for shift
| lessness and lllteracy